Eyewear including eyeglasses and goggles for various purposes, conventionally include a frame structure made of a substantially rigid material such as a rigid plastic material, and one or two lenses attached thereto. The substantially rigid frame structure is used to support the lens or lenses thereon and is configured in accordance with and abuts an eyewear user's face around or near the eyes. The frame structure is retained on the user's head for example, by temples or an elastic strip. In selective types of eyewear the frame structure further includes cushioning pads attached at the rear side thereof. The cushioning pads are usually made of a soft material such as rubber and are attached to either the entire rear side of the frame structure or to one or more selected locations at the rear side of the frame structure such that the soft cushioning pad rather than the body of the rigid frame structure contacts the user's face, and functions to protect the user's skin particularly when the user wears the eyewear for a relatively long period of time. In an accident, the cushioning pad also absorbs impact applied to the eyewear and thus protects the user's face.
In conventional eyewear, whether or not the cushioning pad is attached thereto, the frame structure is configured to form some manner of retaining configuration for engagement with the lens. For example, the frame structure may define a pair of apertures with very shallow grooves on the inner periphery thereof such that lenses can be received in the apertures and attached thereto by a “click in” action which forces elastic deformation of either or both the lenses and a portion of the frame body defining the respective apertures when each lens is pressed into one of the apertures. There are also other various retaining configurations in conventional eyewear for attachment of lenses thereto. Nevertheless, there is still a need for new methods and structural arrangements for attaching lenses to frames of eyewear of different types.